Incredulous, the inhabitants of Riudarenes (La Selva) responded last week to questions from reporters about why suddenly yours is the second richest municipality in Spain. “I see everyone the same and I don’t know where that came from,” said a baker in the news of La 1. “Maybe I haven’t noticed and I’ve been admitted there who knows how much,” joked another man.
According to the latest statistics on personal income tax filers published by the Tax Agency, between 2019 and 2020 the average gross income of Riudarenes went from 33,400 to 67,302 euros. This caused a great escalation in the classification of the richest municipalities in Spain, in which it passed from position 64 to 2, only surpassed by Madrid’s Pozuelo de Alarcón, a classic on the list. Riudarenes thus becomes the richest place in Catalonia, a place traditionally occupied by Sant Just Desvern and Sant Cugat del Valles for hosting the residences of Barcelona’s rich and famous. How is it possible to double the average income of a municipality in just one year?
Riudarenes is a small town where 2,283 people live. It is not a very touristy area, beyond having some rural tourism establishment, nor a real estate El Dorado. On average, the square meter It is sold at 1,167 euros, less than half of what is asked for in the main municipalities of the Costa Brava, although there are several large farmhouses for sale with prices above one million euros.
For days, the main hypothesis of the media has revolved around a lottery prize of 835,805 euros that touched a young neighbor in 2019. But, with the data in hand, that amount is not enough to explain the surprising jump in income of the population. In the first place, because lottery prizes are taxed at 20% and do not fall within the tax base of personal income tax. Secondly, because what is included in personal income tax are the yields obtained with the prize: that is, the young winner would have to have invested his 668,000 euros (after taxes) in something that would have brought him millionaire profits in just 12 months.
These benefits would appear reflected in the statistics of income from the capital of the municipality, which went from a total of €4.6 million in 2019 to 38.2 million in 2020. It is hard to believe that a single person has made such a big hit in such a short time.
Wealth did not come suddenly
When towns like Riudarenes sneak into the lists of the richest in Spain, the media usually look for the statistical anomaly that raises the mean. So the day that Avinyonet del Penedès became the second richest municipality in Spain, EL PERIÓDICO DE CATALUNYA reported that he richest municipality in Spain (in 2019), was due to the presence of businessman Mauricio Botton, grandson of the founder of Danone. when he touched Matadepera (Barcelona, in 2020), the same newspaper attributed it to the fact that the businessman and neighbor Manuel Lao had sold his gaming company to Blackstone. In 2021, The confidential revealed that Xeresaa Valencian town with 2,197 inhabitants, became the second richest by the sale of an orange warehouse to two investment funds.
But the rise of Riudarenes has not been so From overnight. In 2018 it was already among the 30 richest municipalities in Spain and number 14 in Catalonia. As can be seen in the following graph, the evolution of average income has been gradual and the largest jump has been made by income from movable capital, which includes bank interest, stock dividends and capital gains. Thus, as has sleepless Mayor Josep Solethe improvement is due to “a small group of neighbors that is doing very well in business.”
Movable capital, responsible for growth
Winners of the pig boom
Of the 195 companies that appear registered in Riudarenes, the first whose name draws attention is Batalle meat. This is a company that has already appeared on the pages of THE NEWSPAPER OF SPAINfrom the Prensa Ibérica group, for being one of the main exporters of pork in Spain. Last January, this newspaper reported that 52% of Batallé’s production goes abroad and that it is one of the 57 Spanish companies authorized to sell pork in China. Also that it has the rejection of the residents of Faramontanos de Tábara, in Zamora, for the macro farm that you intend to install there.
Swine fever devastated the Asian country in 2018 and benefited an important group of companies in our country They started trading there. Although sales are slowing as China recovers, the last few years have established themselves as the golden age of the Spanish pork. “China needed a lot of meat and they began to pull from the international market. There was a struggle between several countries. In Europe, the one that took the most prominence was Spain. That has precipitated countries like Germany and Denmark to reduce their census, because Spain is more competitive than level of costs. We do it very well”, sources from the sector explained to this newsroom at the time. In this context, Cárnica Batallé, a native of Riudarenes all his life —it was founded in 1920 by Pere Batallé, grandfather of the current owners— has emerged as one of the big winners.
Between 2016 and 2020, Cárnica Batallé SA, the main company of the family conglomerate, increased 48% their sales and went from entering 195 to 288 million euros. But it is that in the same period profits went from 15 to 35 million euros, which means a growth of 133%. In 2019, the meat company distributed 27 million euros of dividends among its shareholders; in 2020, 30 million. The shareholding of the company is divided 50% between the two family branches: Salté Promotionsby Salvador Batallé Carbones, and Joba Promotionsby Josep Batallé Delounder, who in turn had a sicav which closed in September, as so many others have done due to tougher taxation. Said dividend distributions would result in an increase in the returns on the capital of the municipality, because, as confirmed by the mayor the family lives there. From Batallé they have not wanted to make statements on the subject.
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“The meat industry has been very stable for years. It is, without a doubt, a very important factor in the economy of the municipality and it employs many people. But I, without data, cannot attribute the jump in income to the meat industry,” The alderman agrees, confirming that Cárnica Batallé is the only meat company of this size in Riudarenes and that the rumor exists that they are the ‘culprits’. The Battles”they give work to many people from the town and they do not show“, he continues. “It is not that there is a road to the estate of the rich, but that they live downtown like everyone else“.
The Batallé occupy position 194 in the list of the richest in Spain which is produced annually The world. They have several other million-dollar billing companies —Selección Batallé, Esporc, Norfrisa, Reserva Batallé and a part of Càrniques de Juià— but they do not present consolidated accounts and the only one that has distributed dividends in recent years has been the mothership, Cárnica Batallé . It remains to be seen whether the level of benefits is maintained in the future, as it is expected that the increase in production costs, together with the recovery of Chinese pigs, slow down exports.With information from GIRONA DIARYof the Iberian Press group.